Locked Inside
by jeffthemermaid
Summary: Real World AU Current Time. Hogwarts was an elite boarding school, with an advanced and unique program for mental health care. Dramione Slow Burn. A lot of angst, mental health issues and abuse. The struggle is real.
1. Chapter 1

Hogwarts was an elite boarding school, with an advanced and unique programme for mental health care. It was renowned for successfully rehabilitating and caring for students struggling with a variety of disorders and problems, and for high academic achievers.

The school was located in remote Scotland, inside a renovated castle that was several hundred years old, and surrounded by woodlands and a lake. It was too far into the country side for phone or internet service, and was best accessed by rail as the roads leading to it often were inaccessible during harsh winter weather.

Their objectives as a school were to combine old fashioned values like hard work and commitment with modern values like acceptance and equality.

Their classes included tending to the vast gardens and caring for the horses kept in the large stable on the grounds.

On top of this they had many programmes designed for youth struggling with a variety of mental health issues.

Many considered the school a huge step in the right direction, and the waiting list for attendance was years long. Tuition fees were very expensive and only one scholarship was given out per year.

They offered four years of study, accepting students from age 15. The extra year of study was unusual, most schools offering graduation at 18, but Hogwarts's curriculum was curated the extra age, trying to reach as many students as possible.

And though they were a school, they didn't keep students on once they had recovered, they were chiefly a rehabilitation centre, their goal to heal the broken, and send them back into the world as whole people again.

Because of this there wasn't a class graduation as such. Many students were released and returned after relapses, students who had already attended were always accepted over newcomers.

The Headmaster of Hogwarts, the aging Albus Dumbledore, a mysterious but kindly figure, ran the school with great passion and integrity.

The school required hired a large staff, this included tutors, medical and psychological professionals, janitors, groundskeepers and an entire kitchen staff.

The school had around 200 students when the school year started, their first term beginning on the first of September, right on the cusp of the changing season.

Students arrived either by the school owned train, the Hogwarts Express, or were driven by their families. Despite being only the first day of autumn, there was already a chill in the air. It hadn't been a very hot summer and a harsh winter was predicted.

After5pm, by when all students were expected to have arrived, most students were catching up with one another, unpacking their trunks and filling with air with a lively atmosphere.

Promptly at 6pm the dinner gong sounded and the students, in smart casual wear, filed from their dormitories and common rooms into the Grand Hall.

They stood at assembly while Dumbledore gave a welcome back speech, taking special care to welcome their four new arrivals, and make a few miscellaneous announcements.

The school was divided into four Houses.

Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

The students were sorted at random, and the houses served as a way to teach teamwork and for healthy competition. All school sports and any school competitions were always divided by house. Each house had their own table in the Great Hall and their own dormitory. Classes however were shared.

On top of this students competed for the House Cup each year. For doing well, successfully completing things, good behaviour and general achievements, the tutors, or Professors, as they called them, could award House Points. They could also take away House Points for misconduct and for breaking school rules.

Once Dumbledore had finished his speech, the students were seated at their House tables, which were laden with a lavish feast, a generally positive hubbub filled the room as everyone began eating and chatting together.

At the head table, where all the professors and the Headmaster ate, quiet talk of the year to come was had between mouthfuls of sweet vegetables and soft meats. Dumbledore sipped his pumpkin juice and looked out over his students with twinkling eyes.

He wanted to save each and every soul in front of him. And he was determined he would.


	2. Chapter 2

At the Gryffindor table Hermione Granger poked at her food listlessly. The creamy pasta looked good, and smelt amazing.

But she couldn't summon the energy to lift the fork to her mouth.

Her stomach growled miserably and she glanced around, self-conscious, but the Hall was too noisy for anyone to notice.

Beside her was the only person she could ever summon up some joy to see in this place, her best friend, Harry Potter. He was chowing down on his food, and she watched him enviously.

Hermione and Harry had arrived at Hogwarts on the same day, a bit under a year ago. Neither was doing any better than they had been then, and neither would be released anytime soon.

As anyone with access to Hermione's school file would know, she had been diagnosed and was suffering from Depression, Bulimia Nervosa, Suicide Ideation and Body Dysmorphia.

Harry's own file was equally as complicated, if not more so. He had High Functioning Autism Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD and Anxiety. He was extremely intelligent, he had an IQ of 143, and was amazingly creative. Physically, besides his ticks, he wasn't noticeably affected by his Autism or Asperger's. He was an attractive young man, but controlling his emotions, his social interactions and understanding of relationships and such was very treacherous. He was comparable to characters like Sheldon from the TV sitcom, the Big Bang Theory.

He didn't like many people, but he liked Hermione and he allowed her into his world.

Hermione personally viewed him as not even being unwell. To her, he simply lived in his own world that was just too advanced for today's society. He wasn't like a child or anything, he was fully as mature as he should be for his 17 years of life, but he was just sort of childlike in his straightforward, logical way of existing. He just couldn't understand social constructs, said what he thought, and didn't really care the normal things people care about.

Hermione had a very different struggle. She too was rather intelligent. Her own IQ was 140, which is genius level. She had been called wasted potential more times then she could count. But she didn't know how to fix herself, so wasted she remained.

"You have to eat." Harry said indelicately, capturing Hermione's attention. His face was kind, though his tone was matter of fact.

 _Eating isn't the problem,_ Hermione thought miserably. All she did was eat, stupid fat fuck that she was. She just didn't have the strength to throw up her shame tonight, so not eating was her only option.

Hermione blinked rapidly as a lump rose in her throat and tears pricked her eyes. "I'm just not very hungry." She lied with a forced smile, digging her nails into her palms under the table as her stomach complained again.

 _You can eat when your horrid thighs don't rub together,_ she thought inwardly and sipped some water, hoping to ease the discomfort.

Her body dysmorphia was too well shown in this moment, as the beautiful, curly haired girl sat at the Gryffindor table, shrouded in a baggy hoodie and loose jeans. Her clothes hid the subtle curves of her bosom and hips, hid the flatness of her waist and her anxious, self-conscious posture hid her beauty, beauty that she herself couldn't see.

At the Slytherin table another depressed 17 year old of intense beauty also was not eating.

Slumped against the table, chin in hand, pale and thin, sat Draco Malfoy, with an empty plate and fresh wound dressings on his arms.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione shared her dormitory with three other girls.

Hermione wasn't close with any of her room mates, but with the exception of one, she didn't mind them.

Parvati Patil, was the best one, and the nicest, but suffered from an advanced case of schizophrenia. She genuinely believed she had an identical twin sister named Padma, who definitely did not exist.

Parvati was socially withdrawn and barely spoke to anyone besides "Padma", lacked motivation to do most regular things, and was often paranoid that people were following her. She also often had delusions that other things besides "Padma" that weren't there, actually were.

Fay Dunbar, Hermione barely saw, she spent a lot of time down in the psych ward. She never spoke and Hermione was honestly not sure what she'd been admitted for, but it was obvious to her that it was incredibly serious.

Last, and certainly the worst, was Lavender Brown.

Never had Hermione met a more fake person. Though technically enrolled because she had tried to kill herself, she didn't come across as someone who was suffering.

Not only had she attempted suicide by swallowing pills on a live Instagram video, she also purposefully wore short skirts and short-sleeved tops whenever she cut herself to show people. She was constantly prattling on about how hard her life was, how much she hated her parents, and threatening to kill herself anytime someone didn't adore her.

She needed more attention to survive than a plant would sunlight.

Hermione LOATHED her.

And she wasn't sorry about it.

After the feast Hermione walked with Harry to Gryffindor tower, and bade him goodnight before going to her dorm.

Fay was already asleep, Parvati wasn't present and Lavender was in one of her semi-regular bursts of tears.

The second Hermione entered, Lavenders eyes lit up and she jumped and ran over the other girl with a whimper of distress.

"Oh Hermione. Thank god you're here." Lavender said through her tears as she wrapped the cringing Hermione in a desperate hug.

"Yup. Here I am." Hermione replied dispassionately, standing uncomfortably as Lavender accosted her personal space.

"You'll never believe what's happened." Lavender began, releasing Hermione to wipe her eyes dramatically. Hermione tuned out to the rest of the story, managing to nod and mumble vague words as she changed into her pyjamas and got into bed.

Luckily Lavender was so self-absorbed she failed to notice as Hermione's eyes shut and sleep took her away from her growling stomach and Lavenders wailing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next day, the first class day of the term, Hermione fell back into her usual routine.

Pee, shower, brush teeth, dress, breakfast, vomit, cry, wash face, attend class.

She always carried around a tin of zero calorie breath mints, a security measure she used as she fretted that her breath would smell of her expulsion.

She coasted through her classes, her mind constantly busy elsewhere, dissecting what she'd eaten, estimating if she'd thrown enough up to get rid of the damage the food had done, and feeling generally humiliated by all of her actions. She was so self-conscious of how much space she took up on her seat at her desk. She was constantly running her hands around her seat, cringing whenever she felt her huge body near the edge and trying to make herself as small as possible.

During their lunchtime she was in one of the lavatory's, on her knees on the cold floor, fingers down her throat amidst wracking sobs, throwing up again. Her throat burned and her head ached from the strain, but she kept doing it until she collapsed on the floor beside the toilet, an exhausted mess.

She was sitting there, leaning against the partition wall in the furthest stall, when she heard the lavatory door open. Her heart froze, terrified of being caught in the state she was in. A tutor would be horrible, because they would look at her with such pity, but a student would be worse. There were so many bullies at Hogwarts, and Hermione had been a target before.

Two sets of feet hurried down the aisle before entering the stall beside Hermione. She watched them, still frozen in place.

The smaller set of feet, the ones clad in expensive looking, dainty, Puma sneakers lifted off the ground amidst a lot of giggling and the suction-like-noise of kissing, while the larger ones, in gaudy golden Nike's, pressed hard into the ground as though bracing for lifting.

"Ah, oh yes. Fuck me Goyle, yes fuck me." Lavender's recognisably high pitched voice keened loudly as a guy called Goyle seemingly began fucking her against the toilet stall divider.

Hermione sat through their moans and grunts and thrusts against her stall for about 11 seconds before the need to escape overwhelmed her.

Silently she got to her feet and slipped out of the stall. Keeping her eyes downcast she hurried past the manically moving stall and its occupants, and hurried to the door. She was aware that she was a tear stained mess, and that her hands and face were coated in saliva and vomit residue, but she had to get away.

Wishing she could wash up, but refusing to be noticed by Lavender and her companion, Hermione peeked her head out into the corridor. To her relief it was empty.

She slipped out the door and padded, quietly and quickly, up the stairs and into the nearest lavatory.

Stalls were in use but no one was in the sink area, so Hermione hurried to clean herself, grateful no one had seen her. She was quick to wash up, taking care not to look at her reflection in the mirror longer than she absolutely had to, and finished by chewing up a few breath mints.

 _Okay, back to it,_ she told herself as she exited the bathroom and made her way to English Lit class.

Professor McGonagall was Hermione's favourite. She was a strict woman, but also a kind one.

However today she was saying words Hermione dreaded hearing.

"Pairs." McGonagall informed them with a strict eyebrow raise. "I will assign the pairs, no choosing."

The class collectively groaned, Hermione included. Harry wasn't in this class, neither was Parvati, in fact Hermione couldn't see anyone she knew well besides Lavender.

 _Not Lavender, not Lavender, please not Lavender,_ Hermione wished desperately as McGonagall began reading names off the roll.

"Thomas/Finnigan, Weasely/Wood, Brown/Lovegood, Granger/Malfoy, Zabini/Chang." Their professor paired up the class swiftly and set down her clipboard with their names.

"Alright hop to it, pair up." She instructed impatiently as the class hovered uncertainly.

Hermione looked around, trying to keep the distress from her expression as a tall, _beautiful,_ blonde guy approached her. He was very pale, thin, and Hermione couldn't help but notice the depth behind his sharp grey eyes.

"Granger?" He asked coldly.

"Hermione." She squeaked out, confirming her identity as she scooted to the far edge of the bench seat.

"Draco Malfoy." He introduced himself without looking at her and sat down.

Hermione nodded her acknowledgement, swallowing hard as McGonagall started going over their assignment.

The coldness, the pure _distaste_ radiating from Draco unsettled Hermione, making her even more uncomfortable than she would normally be. She was fairly certain she'd seen his blonde hair at the Slytherin table, he certainly wasn't a Gryffindor, she would have met him otherwise.

But other than that, all she knew about him was he was stone cold gorgeous, and clearly thought he was better than her.

 _Well I can't blame him,_ Hermione thought to herself as she refocused her attention on her professor, _it's not like he isn't._


End file.
